


Simple Luxuries

by todisturbtheuniverse



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Family, Fluff, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 20:10:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1870827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/pseuds/todisturbtheuniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Vega babysits. He's good at it, too. Don't let Shepard tell you different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Simple Luxuries

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pandasinthetardis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandasinthetardis/gifts).



> Prompt for a giveaway fic: MASS EFFECT DADDY AU! Maybe James Vega watching over all the babies?

As soon as he pinged the door lock, a little voice on the other side squealed. James smiled, bracing himself. Feet thudded across hardwood floors, skidding to a stop as the door opened.

Shepard’s daughter was barely as tall as his hip, but damn, the kid could jump. He had only just started to kneel down when she leapt up, giggling, to give him a hug.

"Hey, grasshopper," he said, pinching her nose.

"Uncle James!" she laughed, swatting his hand away.

"Josephine," Shepard sighed, appearing in the doorway with a harried look on her face. The girl wrinkled her nose at the sound of her full name. "What have I told you about answering the door without me?"

"Gettin’ slow, Lola," James teased, deflecting Shepard’s attention away from her daughter. "How did this short stuff outrun you?"

Shepard put her hands on her hips and glared. “That short stuff wasn’t trying to convince her father to step away from calibrating the…” She took a deep, put-upon breath, stopping just short of a curse. “… _stupid_  security system.”

James laughed. “Scars can find something to calibrate just about anywhere, huh?”

Just like that, the tension went out of Shepard. She smirked, an old mischievous glint in her eyes. “He certainly can,” she said lightly.

James rolled his eyes. “That’s gross. Grasshopper, tell your mom she’s being gross.”

"Mom, you’re being gross," Josie repeated, oblivious.

Shepard just chuckled, stepping aside to let James in. When he put Josie down, she took his dog tags with her, giggling wildly and running off toward the kitchen. “You better hide good!” James called after her, play-threatening.

"Thanks for doing this on such short notice," Shepard said, smiling. "The next time the Alliance tells me I need this much shore leave, I’m going to tell them to kiss my ass."

The years hadn’t necessarily been kind to Shepard—or maybe it was just the leftovers of that one year, the worst year. She had scars to match her husband’s; they were both vain in that bizarre way that meant they were both proud of their marks and too damn practical to pay for their removal. And there were threads of silver in her dark hair now, catching the light like winking stars.

But she was still Lola.

"And here I thought you were enjoying the peace and quiet," Garrus said, stepping into the foyer. He shared a brief look with Shepard before his gaze passed over to James. "I thought that was your bellow I heard, Vega. What brings you here?"

"As I was trying to tell you while you had your talons in the wires of our security system—"

"That was your first mistake," James interrupted. Garrus chuckled.

"—we are going out tonight," Shepard continued, ignoring them both, "and James agreed to babysit."

The brief mirth vanished from Garrus’s face. He eyed Shepard warily.

"Do we really trust him to watch her?" he hedged, for all the world like James couldn’t hear him.

"Yes," Shepard replied, turning back to look at James. She mustered her sweetest smile—the one usually reserved for councilors and reporters. "Because he knows that if anything happens to her, I’ll kill him."

Yeah, she was still Lola—made his skin crawl and everything. Dios.

"Only if I don’t get there first," Garrus agreed, amiable again.

"She’s already had dinner," Shepard said, as though James hadn’t just seen his whole life flash before his eyes. "Make sure she goes to bed by eight, Vega."

"Sure thing, Admiral."

She wrinkled her nose; she hated when people used her new, official title. James didn’t wonder where Josie got her mannerisms from. Maybe they looked nothing alike—Josie had lost her family when Tiptree was hit by reapers, and Shepard and Garrus had adopted her three years after the war ended—but she was Shepard’s daughter, through and through.

"Come on," Garrus said, reaching out to take Shepard’s hand. "I think you’ve terrified the babysitter enough."

She sighed, shot a last warning look at James, and followed Garrus out.

"Ready or not, here I come!" James shouted as soon as the door was shut. A strained giggle echoed from upstairs and, grinning, he followed the sound.

* * *

There was a damn good reason James was Josie’s favorite “uncle”: he spoiled her. He couldn’t help it; he loved the kid. Everyone on the Normandy did, really. They were her big, ass-kicking family. They gave her piggyback rides, played games with her, told her stories. She had been wary of them all, at first. What kid growing up in a galactic war wouldn’t be?

But late one night, eyes puffy and red from a nightmare, she’d found her way down to the shuttle bay where James was still awake. It hadn’t been long after Shepard and Garrus brought her home—a week, maybe.

_"Hey, grasshopper," he called—quiet, so as not to startle her. "What’re you doing down here at this time of night?"_

_She hiccuped, shuffled from foot to foot. “Sometimes I dream about monsters,” she confided in a small, scared voice._

_"Yeah," he said, sitting down on the mats where he and Shepard used to spar and have stupid heart-to-hearts. He patted the ground beside him. "Me, too."_

_She sat down with him, folding her legs underneath her. “Do you know any stories?” she asked, her big brown eyes staring up at him. “The lady at the orphanage always told us about The Shepard.”_

"Tell me about The Shepard," Josie said, drowsing in her bed.

It was funny, how kids didn’t always put two and two together. The girl knew her mom and dad and all their friends were war heroes; she’d heard her mom called Shepard plenty of times, since even Scars hadn’t kicked that habit. But she hadn’t assembled yet that The Shepard and her mom were one and the same—that when the crew told her stories, they were sharing their memories of her mother.

She would figure it out someday, James knew, but for now, she had this.

"The Shepard was a great warrior—a protector of all life in the galaxy. When the big lobster-robots came—" Josie always giggled at that, right on cue, "—she went to all the races of the galaxy and convinced them to help her fight the monsters. To the turians, she said…"

"I will give you the krogan!" Josie said—in a fairly passable imitation of her mother, no less. "If you promise your fleets for Earth!"

"And to the salarians, she said…"

"Help me cure the genophage and save Palaven!"

"And to the quarians, she said…"

"There will be peace between you and the geth, and you will all fight for Rannoch!"

"So it went," James agreed. "And The Shepard fought, and fought, and fought. And she lost some of her friends along the way, but she never gave up, because they sacrificed themselves to help her save the galaxy, and she couldn’t let their sacrifices be in vain. And then, at the end, The Shepard took back Earth and burned the monsters away."

For a long moment, Josie was quiet, eyes closed; James thought she’d fallen asleep. But then she asked, “What happened to The Shepard after the war? No one ever says.”

James chuckled. “The Shepard came back to her ship, grasshopper, and went on more adventures. Maybe I’ll tell you those stories someday. But right now it’s time for kids to go to sleep.”

He kissed her forehead and turned to go, and there was Shepard, leaning into the doorway, a wry smile on her lips. James shrugged, a little sheepishly.

"The Shepard, huh?" she said when the door was firmly shut. She gestured, and he followed her to the stairs.

"It’s a popular one these days, Lola. Don’t let it go to your head."

She rolled her eyes. “I’m just glad she hasn’t figured out it’s me. I’ve got enough people who can’t form a coherent sentence when I walk into a room—couldn’t take it if my own daughter did it, too.”

"That’s the great thing about kids," James said, grinning. "Even when she does figure out who you are, she won’t give a shit. To her, you’re always going to be the mean old lady who uses her full name and grounds her when she doesn’t do her chores."

Shepard chuckled, an easy, pleased sound. “Ah. Simple luxuries.”

James realized that her hair was mussed, that streaks of dirt marked her civilian clothes. “You know, it’s not a date if you just go to a combat sim.”

"It’s a date if you go for drinks after," she replied, grinning. "And if  _you_ go home, the date will be complete.”

He groaned, waved her off, and made for the door. Her laughter followed him out.


End file.
